


Witness the Field

by jebbypal



Category: Firefly
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-26
Updated: 2006-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:02:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jebbypal/pseuds/jebbypal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes what we witness destroys our beliefs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witness the Field

**Author's Note:**

> Again, Malm = Book

The muddy field is strewn with barricades, bodies and limbs. The air is silent except for the buzzing of flies and the occasional call from the radio at his side. Almost all the searchers are trapped in the same muteness that has grasped him since he stepped off the shuttle.

His mission to confirm the deaths of three high ranking Independent officers is vital; yet for once, the mission has been completely displaced by emotion in his mind.

The sheer number of casualties, Alliance and Independent alike, is staggering. Rage threatens to appear when he pauses to wonder how many died during the last week of negotiations. How many during the last day? The last hour?

The magnitude of discarded lives slowly eats away at the chinks in his armor of belief. Allowing independence to these backward peasants and the foolish nobles that ruled most of the rim moons wouldn't have damaged the Alliance at all. For sure, it would mean a few credits more charged for every imported good and mined resource, but it wasn't worth the lives of an entire generation.

A groan attracts his attention away from his pain and grief. Seven men, nay, two women and five men lay in a small pile under the illusory protection offered by a leaky metal lean-to. One is clearly dead, but the other six still breathe. One even has the strength to raise her gun when his foot kicks several stones into a puddle.

Malm raises his hands in surrender. "At ease, soldier, it's all over. The treaty's been signed." Suddenly, he's glad that his position requires no uniform. Her face shows that she'd just as soon kill him as hear the news.

Tears run down her face as she lowers the gun. "Over. All over." She looks down at the body closest to her. "I pray it's not all over."

Carefully, he radios the med ships to send stretchers. It's clear that none of her unit is capable of walking. Nor does he want to lead six battle weary soldiers through the mine field that separates them from their rescue.

As they wait, he looks at their nametags and considers his mission. Sergeant Malcolm Reynolds had been more than a small thorn in the side of the Alliance during the Battle of Serenity Valley, but he'd not been enough to stop their victory. Malm decides that no one needs to know that he was the one to discover Reynolds.

After all, he can't be expected to execute someone he never met.


End file.
